Childhood friend still offers inspiration years later

Growing up in Missoula during the 1960s there were few African-American families in town. 

One family attended our church and had a daughter my age. We didn’t talk about the fact that our skin tones were different. She came to my house for sleepovers.

One summer we rode the bus to church camp near Three Forks and sat together. She was funny. I couldn’t believe it when she started applying tanning lotion on her arms and said she hoped we would have good weather. “But how can you get a tan?” I asked. She rolled up her sleeve and showed me the difference between where she already had sun exposure. Was I ever surprised to see that part of her arm was actually darker than the rest.

She was energetic, full of humor, and smart. When the race riots started to get bad in Detroit every day there was more bad news. It was frightening. I wanted to talk with her about it, to say I was sorry for the way it was, although I didn’t understand it all. She said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”  I wondered what she must be feeling, but now I think maybe she didn’t want to be singled out as the “Negro.” 

In high school, she became a cheerleader. Yes, you can imagine how she stood out in the Sentinel Spartan uniform waving her pom pons. I wondered how she had the courage to be out front. I certainly didn’t. Instead of hiding, she did the opposite. Can you imagine what it would be like to do the simplest of things like sticking your head out your front door every day knowing you were looked at differently, that you didn’t fit the almost 100 percent of the population surrounding you. Like the rest of us who lived in her community, she did not get to choose whether to be invisible or not.

I don’t know what happened to her after high school although I heard rumors that she went on to become a lawyer. What stays with me to this day is what she modeled. She had the gift of color, and accepted it and did what she wanted to do.

Wherever you are, Kitty, I wish you well and say thanks for shining a light on my path. As a grandmother I asked the kids, on MLK Day, “How would you face the world if you were born with darker skin?” I believe they would be bold, laugh, and live with courage and tell me, “I would do what I’m doing right now.”

— Maryln Zupicich, Bigfork